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Thursday, April 28, 2011

Let's Kill Your Child

'Doctor, I have a serious problem and desperately need your help! My baby is not even 1 year old and I'm pregnant again. I don't want kids so close together.

So the doctor said: 'OK and what do you want me to do?'

She said: 'I want you to end my pregnancy, and I'm counting on your help with this.'

The doctor thought for a little, and after some silence he said to the lady: 'I think I have a better solution for your problem. It's less dangerous for you too.'

She smiled, thinking that the doctor was going to accept her request.

Then he continued: 'You see, in order for you not to have to take care 2 babies at the same time, let's kill the one in your arms. This way, you could rest some before the other one is born. If we're going to kill one of them, it doesn't matter which one it is. There would be no risk for your body if you chose the one in your arms.

The lady was horrified and said: 'No doctor! How terrible! It's a crime to kill a child!

'I agree', the doctor replied. 'But you seemed to be OK with it, so I thought maybe that was the best solution.'

Those who make this argument do not understand the difference between an autonomous human child and an embryo whose very existence is tied to the mother. A mother can choose to give up either child, for an embryo this can only mean death, but for a child there's this little capability called adoption.

Creating a human being goes far beyond conception, and saying that conception should force a person to go through the whole process without their consent is ridiculous.

"Those who make this argument do not understand the difference between an autonomous human child and an embryo whose very existence is tied to the mother."

So Alex - When did you become a human being?

I really want to know.

The moment you were born? When you could pick up a spoon and put food in your mouth?

Do you really think that you are now self-existent? You depend on no one else?

When are you going to stop being a human? Is it when you're so old someone needs to change your diapers?

How about when you get sick, or badly injured? If you get in a car wreck, and you're dependent for your existence on doctors and machines, I assume you won't be a human anymore? Someone can just off? No murder? Perhaps a misdemeanor?

"Without their consent"

How is it that you are so utterly naive? In the vast majority of cases women who abort their children willingly had sex. Didn't they teach you in elementary school that sex can produce a baby? That's like saying that you didn't consent to your car stopping when you willingly press the brake petal.

It is utter nonsense to decouple sex and procreation the way you just did. What you're suggesting is insane - literally - you do one thing, which has a predictable result, and then you throw up your hands in astonishment when that result realizes.

Here's the thing - we both know that an embryo is a human. You can rationalize all you want but at the end of the day you have to look at yourself in the mirror, and when you do, it will pass through your mind that you're the sort who is a-ok with slaughtering babies.

Those who make this argument do not understand the difference between an autonomous human child and an embryo whose very existence is tied to the mother.

What's the morally relevant difference between, say, a human child whose existence is tied to its mother and a human child whose existence is tied to its oxygen?

A mother can choose to give up either child, for an embryo this can only mean death, but for a child there's this little capability called adoption.

If science one day allows us to transfer said embryos into either another woman's womb or an artificial womb, then would you be in favor of outlawing abortion? If not, then how does the fact that a mother has the *option* to adopt out the child imply that the mother may not also abort/kill the child?

"Creating a human being goes far beyond conception, and saying that conception should force a person to go through the whole process without their consent is ridiculous."

How far? What is "the whole process"? Apparently it's until the child exists the womb, because any time after that point it can be adopted out and doesn't necessarily depend on *the mother* for its existence. Okay, so we have your upper limit.

Moreover, what's the relevance of "the whole process?" Does that mean from conception until birth? So we just can't force a women to go through "the whole process", but that doesn't imply we couldn't force them to go through "part of" the whole process. And since women find out they're pregnant some time after conception, no one is forced to go through "the whole" process, just a part of it.

But you may reply, "No, any part of the whole process a woman may not be forced to endure." Okay, since "the whole process" is conception until birth, and since not one part can be forced upon the woman, wouldn't your argument commit you to claiming that a woman may kill the child as it's traveling down the birth canal?

What's the morally relevant difference between a child that is 4 inches away from being born and a born child? How does 4 inches determine whether one is a human or not? Spatial location determines humanity? One might thing that position requires "an incredible amount of epic fail" to be maintained. Remember, your position is that "a human" is created by "the whole process" and "the whole process" apparently starts at conception and ends at live birth. From that I pointed out an ambiguity in your position, to wit: a woman cannot be (a) forced to endure only the whole of the whole, or (b) forced to endure any part of the whole. From there, I argued that if you take (a) then your argument could not be employed against (roughly) 99.9% of abortions, and if you take (b) you'd have to allow the abortion to take place when the child was just 4 inches (maybe 40 seconds, say) away from being born. I pointed out that not only is this a incredible and viscous position to entertain---possibly marking out a depraved moral character---but that you wouldn't be able to find a morally relevant difference between four-inch-away-child and born-child that excuses you from not allowing one to be killed but the other to be.

I have always been human. Excuse my lack of wording, I meant to say human embryo alongside human baby. I was never interested in a definition war. I'd like to think that every day I become a little bit more than I was, but I'm still as human now as I ever was.

As far as dependence goes, I depend on plenty, but I give all whom I depend on the right to cut me off at any given time, and if such an act will cause my death, then unfortunately I will die.

Your analogy, however, between sex and brakes is simply flawed. Sex is like a party, and pregnancy is like someone moving in. Just because you can meet some potential roommates at a party doesn't mean you've already given them permission to live with you.

Paul:Yes, if/when science allows human embryos to be transferred to another womb (artificial or real), and this process is not significantly more dangerous than an abortion (no permanent damage), then I am all for outlawing abortions.

Steve:Not really novel, no. All human beings started out the same way. We were also split up into sperm and eggs at some point. It is a unifying thought, I would agree. And I'm all for embryos to be tied to the mom until it's ready for birth, as long as you have the mother's consent. Every child should be wanted.

Everyone:I want to make it clear that I do not consider abortions a good thing. The sperm and egg are the flint and stone that causes the spark of life. For it to occur and be unwanted, for an embryo to be killed, it's not the ending of a life, it's the prevention of one. And that's tragic.

Potential lives end all of the time without human intervention, without notice, but in this case people must actually act and knowingly destroy such potential. Such things should not happen, I agree, but I believe that the solution is the proper education and use of birth control.

And I understand that the lines aren't clear cut. There is no sudden switch from one form to another. There is a slow, gradual process from single-celled organism to birthed baby to toddler and onwards and forwards. And many variables and issues to this problem come into play the longer the unborn lives. The longer it lives, the more you are snuffing out when you kill it.

For this very reason I consider the comparison ridiculous. A child that has come into this world, that has gotten to see, to think, to experience much more than it did in the womb; it's death is more significant than the death of the unborn child still inside the womb.

I certainly can appreciate why you wouldn't want to interact with the vast majority of my post. Okay, we'll go with the topic you chose to respond to:

1. What is the morally relevant distinction between the fetus pre-said-technology and post-said-technology? What morally relevant fact changes such that what could be killed one day is now immoral and illegal to kill the very next day (the day the technology goes live, as it were)? Is there any non-arbitrary answer you can give here?

2. Next, you said it is "the whole process" that creates a human being. Since the unborn fetus hasn't (obviously) completed "the whole process", then it isn't a "human being." So, on what basis would you outlaw the abortion of a "non-human" entity that is inside the woman's body? What would that argument look like?

3. Suppose we can only put the fetus in the body of another woman, and suppose none can be found (no volunteers, no compatible system, etc), what then? We have the ability, just no prospects. Can the unborn be killed? If so, what if the mother of the born child cannot find another person or agency to take her child? May she kill it? If not, what's the morally relevant distinction?

Alex. you're not suggesting (with a straight face) that the unborn isn't living, are you? I'm sure that's more scientifically ignorant than, on your view, affirming the earth was created some 6,000 years ago.

"Your analogy, however, between sex and brakes is simply flawed. Sex is like a party, and pregnancy is like someone moving in. Just because you can meet some potential roommates at a party doesn't mean you've already given them permission to live with you."

Alex. That is a terrible analogy, because you're still decoupling the natural cause and effect of sex and procreation. My analogy stands, as it illustrates the cognitive dissonance in your position - you throw up your hands in shock when the 'roommate' moves in, after you send him a signed lease agreement.

Paul:I did not directly respond to the rest of your post because I felt that other parts of my post answered them well enough, if you wish me to elaborate further on any particular part of that question, I will do so.

1. The fetus is able to live without living on the mother's body. The baby can live and the woman has full control over her property.

2. I have already apologized for my accidental misuse of words here. It is human in the womb as well as out of (in my original post I meant to say human embryo alongside human baby).

3. If the woman does not want to be pregnant, that is her choice. If the woman does not want to raise the child and never agreed to do so, then she is allowed to abandon it. It is a horrible thing that I wish would not happen, which is why adoption options and general birth control are very important. When an option is present to the woman to both have her choice and allow the baby to live, then I would say it is her responsibility to do so.

As for your question, I was referring to the experience of life. Of course the unborn are alive. It has not yet, however, truly got to experience life. And I agree that it is tragic.

Mike:A lease is given over to a potential tenant only when there is an intent to let that tenant live on the given property. Sex often does not involve intent to get pregnant or have offspring. Intent is crucial. The analogy fails.

Further, sex does not always lead to pregnancy (especially when birth control is properly used). The "cause and effect" of sex and pregnancy is not always in play, nor is it ever really certain. Sex can be recreational just as much as it can be procreational. I fail to see, then, how I am being cognitively dissonant.

"Sex often does not involve intent to get pregnant or have offspring. Intent is crucial. The analogy fails."

Here's how it is, Alex.

You are doing something that everyone knows might result in pregnancy. When this does happen, you're approving of murder. A person seeks pleasure, obtains something that they didn't want, but can reasonably be expected to happen, and then murders to get out of it. That's your position. That's what you are endorsing: Murdering inconvenient people. The person is engaging in an act where conception is reasonably reasonable.

Not intending to conceive a baby does not justify murdering the baby.

Or are you suggesting that whenever something is done to us by another that we do not intend or find convenient, we are morally free to murder that individual? Yet even this is flawed, since no one has done something else to a woman who becomes pregnant - the vast majority willingly copulate. The only one who doesn't get a say is the baby.

1. And no, a mother cannot morally abandon a child that she does not want to raise. She is obligated to care for the child. She will be held to account at judgment for whether and how she does this.

2. The cognitive dissonance has to do with you framing the issue as if one cannot reasonably expect pregnancy as a result of one's actions, and as if the mother is the victim of the baby (e.g. this is implicit in your analogy of the roommate imposing himself on you). You will feign innocence and ignorance, playing the victim, despite taking deliberate action which can knowingly lead to your 'victim-hood' and to the very situation for which you cry foul.

There is a reason your comments keep getting deleted around here. They add nothing.

1. Your facile comparison between the prerogatives of man and those of God has been addressed on T-blog before. God has the right to take human life. He does not delegate that right to us except in certain circumstances, which do not include murdering a child.

2. "The balance struck by the Roe vs Wade decision of the Supreme Court is perhaps the very best that humanity has achieved, so far. It is compassionate, sensitive, responsible and mindful of the well-being of the societies it underpins, without rancour, without bias, without fear or favor."

Well, except for the 50 million babies that have since been slain. I'm guessing if you asked them, they would have a different opinion. But people such as yourself make sure that they don't have that say.

1. How do you figure that's a morally relevant distinction? Do you understand what that is? I didn't ask for a distinction per se, I specified the domain of distinctions as belonging to members of the set {morally relevant distinctions}. I don't see how you can think your distinction is an element of that set.

2. Good, one down, two to go.

3. I asked if there were no adoption agencies or prospects, could the mother kill her 2 yr. old child. You didn't really answer the question. Maybe, though, when you said she could "abandon it", that was your answer. So, you had something like exposure in mind, a la the ancient Greeks et al. Is that what you had in mind? If not, you didn't answer the question.

Alex really hasn't got much of a leg to stand on seeing he got out of his mother's womb alive to come in here after all those years and express a view contrary to his being in here expressing his views.

I guess it is true what one person has repeated and published for others to read and consider, that is, that the most dangerous place to live temporarily these days in the world is a mother's womb!

Many children, male and female, are just not getting out alive!

Amazing, they had no control over their conception and they have no choice in their most horrible destruction that comes upon them!

"And I'm all for embryos to be tied to the mom until it's ready for birth, as long as you have the mother's consent."

And the antinatalist takes that philosophy one step further: since we can't obtain the prior consent of children to be brought into this world, we should stop reproducing altogether. The only way to respect everyone's rights is for no one to exist.

I believe their attempt to become alive is enough basis to consider their consent. I mean, what else do you have with non-conscious creatures?

Paul:

1. The morally relevant distinction is that we can maintain the wants of both lifeforms. The mother can choose to not have another lifeform within her body and the child can maintain life functions.

To further elaborate, I do not consider abortion moral. Unless overpopulation becomes a huge issue and bringing a child into the world is a valid problem, killing a fetus is not a moral thing to do.

I do, however, maintain that it is the woman's right to choose.

3. Yes, if she never agreed to having or taking care of a child, she should have that choice. It is a horrible thing and I don't think she should. Again, it is not moral for her to do so, but I believe she should have that choice.

"I believe their attempt to become alive is enough basis to consider their consent."

That's how you define informed consent? Surely you jest. What about the attempt of baby crocodiles to hatch (by using the egg tooth)? Is that informed consent to live? How do you define the psychological threshold of consent?

Alex said, "Your analogy...is simply flawed. Sex is like a party, and pregnancy is like someone moving in. Just because you can meet some potential roommates at a party doesn't mean you've already given them permission to live with you."

Actually, sex isn't just a party... it is very literally someone "moving in." It's no secret that once somebody "moves in," you may have an additional "guest." ANY time somebody goes to that party, additional house guests are a possibility.

In other words, an invitation to the party is an invitation for house guests.

Peter Singer has adequately demonstrated that there is no ethical difference whatsoever between a fetus and infant. If it's right and good sometimes to abort a fetus in order to 'save' them from a hard life, then the same can be said of the newborn. As soon as you differentiate, you imply that something metaphysically important has happened to the child (endowed by their Creator with rights). But as scientific/reasonable modern men, we can't believe such silliness any longer. Singer is an atheist and bioethicist at Princeton. I'm linking this up on my blog, great post.